Ever heard of Lushan? Unless you’re Chinese, probably not. Although the mountains are popular destination for Chinese tourists, they are hardly on the radar for foreign travelers. But on a sunny autumn weekend in late October, I found myself on a bus bound for “Mt. Lu.” One of my fellow teachers is attempting to visit all 33 of China’s provinces and autonomous regions (whether Taiwan should count as number 34 is the subject of debate), and I joined him on his visit to province #13, Jiangxi. After a detour in the provincial capital, Nanchang, where we glanced at a monument to Communist heroes and a generic “important” pagoda, we hopped onto a bus north to Lushan.
Lushan was once the summer hotspot for foreign missionaries in China, including our predecessors in the Yale-China Association. They sought out the mountains’ cooler climes as a refuge from the burning heat of central Chinese cities like Changsha. In fact, the weather turned out to be one of Lushan’s nicest surprises — we had blue skies and cool temperatures all weekend. It was ideal for a few hours of hiking, along paths of varying quality and varying views. As we bushwhacked our way to Wu Lao Feng (Five Old Men Peaks), we were reacquainted with a few signs of nature all too absent from daily life in Changsha. Three hours later, we were rewarded with views over the mountains and the plains of central China. The highlight, though, was the bright blue sky.
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